While 78% of Recruiters Routinely Use Search Engines To Learn More About Candidates
With the wealth of information at our fingertips, consumers of today are taking advantage by researching online prior to making purchasing decisions. Starting with a simple search for your brand name, potential customers, business partners and clients can see articles, reviews, ratings and profiles on you or your business. This has been a great asset for them, but it has the potential of becoming a hindrance for you.
Oftentimes, whether it is deserved or not, unfavorable information about us or our companies appears online. This negativity can appear almost anywhere: From an unsatisfied customer in the reviews section of our local profiles, within search results, autocomplete results, image search and more. When potential customers and clients see this information, it acts as a blemish on the reputation you’ve worked hard to establish, and can directly impact your bottom line.
A common (and also, ineffective) approach to handling unfavorable information and results is to seek ways to have it removed. While feasible in some cases, this unfortunately isn’t an option or a wise use of time in most. At Interactually, we’ve developed our own strategy that we have found to be much more effective: our Create, Control & Conquer strategy.
The concept is simple: Rather than seek to remove negative information (which we do when possible), we focus on overpowering the negative information, either pushing it out of view or spinning it to give you or your company a favorable perception in response to a negative review.